And I loved watching her flop on The Traitors.
Photo: Euan Cherry/Peacock
Spoilers ahead for the season-four finale of The Traitors.
Maura Higgins was never going to do well on The Traitors. According to her castmates, the Love Island U.K. all-star barely knew what show she was on when she arrived at the Scottish castle. “Is dis gonna happen ev’ry night?” she asked after the first banishment, according to Monét X Change. As the game went on and Maura was never murdered or banished, she wondered out loud how she’d made it so far when she wasn’t playing well. It never occurred to her that her continued presence in the castle was by design. Rob Rausch knew she could be trusted to whiff it at the final moment, and whiff it she did. Gloriously.
The irony of Maura’s last-minute failure is that she initially had a good read. After Tara Lipinski told Maura she thought Eric Nam was a Traitor, Maura saw the light. The only problem was she still didn’t tink Rob was a Traitor; that prospect was too much for her to bear. So she made a pinky promise with Rob to get rid of Tara, Johnny Weir, and Eric and take home a win for the two Love Island–ers. And Rob used her for all she was worth.
Once Maura sealed her fate, she was sure of her triumph. After voting Tara out, there was no possible way for her to win the game — she was left in the finals with two Traitors. However, that didn’t stop her from wholeheartedly believing otherwise. When it came time for the final three to decide whether to vote one last person out, she decided to play another round. “I tink,” Maura said at the fire, gloating toward her victim with a cunty smirk, “Eric tought he had us all fooled.” This was dramatic irony in the most classical sense: Viewers knew she’d already lost the game, but she was only growing more confident. As they hashed out the vote, Eric told her, “You are so incredibly wrong” about Rob, but she still banished him, earning Rob an extra $100,000 and entering the final two with the man who’d been betraying her the whole game.
But the single funniest thing Maura did all game came during the reveal. There she was with Rob, the man who’d handpicked her as an ally because of her capacity for blind loyalty. Certain he was a Faithful, Maura decided to play a little game. “I’m sorry …” she said, pretending to be a Traitor to a Traitor. Then she shouted with glee, “I’m a Faithful!” The idea of someone being so incorrectly confident in the other person’s honesty that they try to toy with them is tragic. Even more tragic is that Rob played along, gasping when she faked him out. Then he had to deliver the news — he was a Traitor and always was — but he couldn’t keep that goddamned smirk off his face the entire time, even as he apologized.
Look, The Traitors is not a game of strategy. You’ll find more successful scheming in the premiere of Survivor 50 alone than you saw all season on The Traitors. But what The Traitors has in spades is characters, and Maura, with her skintight latex outfits, complete inability to understand gameplay, and endearing Irish accent, was the cream of the crop. What the Traitors edit did particularly well was show us from the start why she was doomed: She relied on Rob to get her through the game (he literally carried her in one of the challenges) and couldn’t separate his kindness from the possibility that Alan had tapped him on the shoulder. She didn’t look at the evidence in front of her because she couldn’t. And in that failure, she became all the more endearing. “You’re never gonna have a girlfriend after this,” she told Rob bitterly at the end. “You’re such a good liar.” Then she started laughing. “I actually tought I was winnin’!” No, Maura. You were never going to win. But dear God, you played your part well.
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